Zombies may be really hot right now, but there’s one thing that is (and probably always will be) a bigger deal: Pixar. Brad Pitt‘s ‘World War Z‘ performed quite well in its opening weekend, but even the biggest zombie movie of all time couldn’t keep pace with ‘Monsters University.’

Film

Weekend

Per Screen

1

Monsters University

$82,000,000

$20,480

$82,000,000

2

World War Z

$66,000,000

$18,298

$66,000,000

3

Man of Steel

$41,215,000 (-64.7)

$9,797

$210,006,000

4

This is the End

$13,000,000 (-37.3)

$4,255

$57,792,000

5

Now You See Me

$7,870,000 (-28.6)

$2,788

$94,451,000

6

Fast and Furious 6

$4,725,000 (-50.7)

$1,955

$228,413,000

7

The Internship

$3,425,000 (-52.1)

$1,788

$38,365,000

8

The Purge

$3,412,000 (-59.0)

$1,550

$59,428,000

9

Star Trek Into Darkness

$3,000,000 (-52.0)

$1,917

$216,611,000

10

Iron Man 3

$2,175,000 (-26.4)

$2,354

$403,120,000

It’s typical of Pixar to open huge, so $82 million for ‘Monsters University’ is an expected (but excellent) start for what’s sure to be one of the larger hits of the summer. Since things have been pretty sparse on the “fun for the whole family” front, the film was destined to open well. The only people unhappy with this one taking the box office by storm are the folks behind ‘Epic,’ who won’t be able to take advantage of the lack of competition anymore. ‘Monsters University’ should cross $200 million with a breeze, but only time will tell if it’ll join the likes of ‘Up’ and ‘Toy Story 3′ to become one of the company’s biggest moneymakers (our money is on no, but we’ve been wrong before).

Everyone who wasn’t watching a cute animated movie about monsters was off watching the expensive live-action movie about Brad Pitt killing monsters. ‘World War Z’ went into the weekend as the pricey zombie epic with a troubled production, and emerged with a solid box office start. ‘World War Z’ was insanely expensive, but $66 million is not a number to shrug at, especially since we’re dealing with a genre that has rarely operated outside of micro-budgets. The big question now is whether or not the film’s blockbuster pedigree will give it legs — horror movies infamously have massive, crippling drops in their second weekends. That’s rarely an issue with most horror since it’s so inexpensive, but this one? It could be a problem.

Speaking of big drops, ‘Man of Steel‘ took an expectedly large tumble in its second week, taking in another $41 million for a $210 million total. That is a massive drop-off, but that’s bound to happen when your movie opens to such big numbers in the first place. In any case, the new Superman movie has already handily outgrossed ‘Superman Returns’ and it’s fairing quite well overseas. It won’t do ‘The Dark Knight’ or ‘Avengers‘ money, but it will certainly do well enough to get a sequel off the ground. Expect a final gross of between $275 million and $300 million.

In fourth place, ‘This is the End‘ earned $13 million for a $57 million total. That’s not bad at all for a modestly budgeted comedy like this. Actually, it’s pretty terrific. More importantly, it only had a minor drop-off from last week, suggesting that it might have some pretty strong legs for the weekends ahead. However, it has a pretty big rival in ‘The Heat‘ next week.

The rest of the top 10 is a showcase for movies that are beginning to sputter to a halt. ‘Now You See Me‘ won’t be around too much longer, but with a current gross of $94 million, that $100 million mark is looking all too likely. Right below it, ‘Fast and Furious 6‘ has $228 million in the bank, making it the highest grossing film in the franchise (even though our prediction of $250 million is starting to look more incorrect by the day).

And the rest? ‘The Internship‘ is still dead on arrival and ‘The Purge‘ is just hanging around at this point, having made most of its money in its opening weekend. At the very bottom, ‘Star Trek Into Darkness‘ and ‘Iron Man 3‘ continue to cling on, but both are just about ready to call it a day.

Next weekend sees the release of ‘The Heat’ and ‘White House Down.’ We expect that they’ll both open quite well.

Welcome back to Newstalk VIPs

It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on .
To keep your personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you.
To activate your account, please confirm your password.
When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.

*Please note that your prizes and activities will not be shared between programs within our VIP network.

Welcome back to Newstalk VIPs

It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing VIP profile. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://newstalk1280.com using your original account information.